Craig Phase 2 Session 6
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In today's session I will be focused on getting back into the swing of things. Most players tend shut down the swing during the winter or off season and with spring right around the corner you may be ready to get back into action. I'm going to show you what I focus on to start getting a feel for the club and striking the golf ball. I'm also including a recap of my session back to the range which will highlight a key area in my swing causing the dreaded pull shot and how the Faults/Fixes section will aid me in straightening out my ball flight.
Hello everyone and welcome back to Craig's Journey.
Hope everybody has had a good fall and winter.
I know I had to take some time off, family, holidays, ETC weather.
The weather in Georgia this winter was pretty daunting to say the least.
But I'm back, all right? I promised y'all that y'all could watch my journey all the way from phase one to phase four.
And that's why I'm back out here today.
It's time for me to pick back up the journey, get my swing cleaned up, and hopefully along my way I'll be able to help you out with a few little tips and drills here and there to help you progress on your way.
I know with being a long winter, some people work on their swing a lot.
And then by the time the season starts to roll around, they like to just play golf and not think about their swing.
But I know others have kind of gone into hibernation and so right now they're just now kind of waking up, getting their muscles back firing, figuring out what a golf course looks like, starting to see a little green grass grow.
And so today what I'm going to do is I'm just going to kind of get back in the saddle.
My next few sessions? I'm going to focus on doing some of the bonus challenges and really trying to ramp up my phase two, because I know everybody's eager for me to get to phase three, learning how to kind of combine the lower half motion and developing a little bit more speed.
So I'm going to work on trying to get phase two done as quickly as possible, but not at the cost of getting my fundamentals down.
And so today what I'm going to do is a set of 10 from down the line and a set of 10 from face on, just getting back in the groove, getting back in the saddle.
And that's kind of what I want to share with you.
So being how it's been a few months, I don't want to come out and start swinging full board that that's not going to do anybody any good.
I need to get back the feel for the club and, you know, swinging and being out in the world.
And so with this session right here, for me being a lead side releaser, I really need to make sure that my lead hand is behaving.
All right.
I need to make sure that I have enough tension to hold onto the golf club, but not so much that I'm not allowing the club to release itself.
And so the first couple out of this 10, I'm going to focus on doing a little bit lead hand only, getting my body awake, getting my lead hand releasing them, kind of compressively or progressively add my trail hand into the mix.
Therefore, I don't go back to some bad habits.
And what I mean by that is it's very easy, especially if it's your first four-way back out to the golf course after a long winter, to fall back into some old habits.
Okay.
It's very easy.
You know, if you're a big shoulder spinner or trail side pusher, or you lack weight shift, whatever your ailment may be, that older movement pattern is still there.
And it's going to be really tough to not fall back into that old trap.
So I'm going to focus on keeping it really small today.
And I'm going to focus on making sure that I'm releasing the club and that I'm really moving through my positions correctly.
And then I'm going to ramp it up.
And I'm going to put in a lot of practice to start getting my numbers back in on phase two.
You can look at my chart on the dashboard and it's already penalized me.
It said, Hey, you haven't been practicing enough.
So I've got some numbers to make up, but know that this series today, we're going to kind of warm up, get back into it.
And then I'm going to start trying some bonus challenges.
And I'm really going to start ramping up the phase two so that I can move into that phase three phase and start making some longer swings, putting a little bit more speed on it and really helping everybody kind of combine going from the smaller swing to the kind of three quarter move, which that's where everybody's trying to figure out, well, how much lower body am I using or do I add more arms? So I'm going to work as hard as I can to get to that.
With that being said, it's great to be back, back in the saddle again.
And so these first five, I'm going to focus on just doing lead hand only.
And then I'm going to start to add my trail.
And as you all know, throughout my hitting of the balls, anything that kind of pops into my head, I'm going to mention.
And hopefully there might be something in there that you may be struggling with, it'll help you out.
So we're going to get going here.
And we're going to focus on making sure now that I get in a good setup position, I'm not going to be scared to make some practice swings.
As you can probably see, and you may not be able to see on camera, I have about, I'd say 90 to 100 golf balls right here.
My goal isn't to hit these as fast as possible.
I'd rather if it's just these 20 that I hit today, which I'm going to hit more than that.
But if it were just these 20, I'd rather have 80 perfect practice swings and just have these 20 be perfect versus the other way around.
So if I can't get too many balls in today, I'm going to make sure that I have a lot of good going on so that I don't fall back into my old movement patterns.
Cause it's very easy to do that.
Luckily I've had a few boot camps to make a couple of swings, but no, no real pellets in front of me.
So we're going to get set up.
We're going to make sure now I'm getting my weight balance.
You know, I don't want to be too far towards the heel heels or the balls of my feet.
I don't want to start rounding from the neck.
I want to get in good posture, have my tilt.
I'm going to just let my trail arm hang out.
I'm going to focus on letting this club kind of release itself.
That was a good start.
That was a good start.
I got a little bit of push off that.
Not too bad.
I felt a good clearing of the hip clubs released.
Might not be able to see it from the camera, but it's at least toe up, erring on the side of toe down.
So no complaints for me on that one.
Just a tiny little bit of a push draw, which that's okay right now.
You know, being lead hand only, as I start to work through here, I'm going to tend to miss a little bit more on the shallower side and having that little bit of that push draw, that's not scaring me that much.
But that's what I want to do.
I want to get my body back going and I want to make sure at the end of itself.
I don't want to start bossing it around first time back.
That sounded a little thin.
I felt that.
That one, for me, I felt just a little bit of rush with the arm.
If you struggle, especially on some of these lead arm only, or you start kind of getting that thin shot, I didn't feel a ton of shoulder spin, which is an easy way to mess it up.
For me, I felt a little yanking of the arm.
That's probably just my legs getting back used to working and they kind of didn't fire enough.
And so my arm said, okay, well, I'll help you out and I'll make this shot happen.
And that's, I don't want that to happen.
So that one was a little thin, a little off the bottom.
And that, that to me just felt like I was pulling excessively hard.
Remember, I'm not trying to power it with my arm on this shot.
In fact, my lead arm is pretty darn weak.
And tuck it back over there.
I get that question a lot.
There we go.
That was good right there.
I was really pleased with that one.
I get that question a lot.
Craig, what do you do with your trail hand when you're doing lead arm and hand only? What do you do with it? You can do whatever you want with it.
It doesn't really matter to me.
You can put it in your pocket.
You let it hang out to the side.
I have found for me that the, the best way is to kind of tuck it behind my back like this.
So I kind of take the back of my hand right here.
I put it right here on kind of my lumbar spine, because especially for this first part of the swing, remember what we need to have a lot of.
Not wrist roll, not wrist set.
We need to have a lot of rotation.
We've got to start to get our core.
We've got to start to get our muscles really working hard early so that this inside portion can move the club.
And so when I put it back on my lumbar like this, it's just a very easy reminder.
Start taking my trail side and my trail shoulder right behind my head.
So it's kind of cheating a little bit, but it really helps make sure that I get that rotation in there.
A little bit more of a push on that one, a little bit more, but I really liked it though.
And the reason I really liked it is I felt how my lower half was leading the way.
I just was a little bit tense in my hand, but I didn't feel overly controlled or overly trying to dominate the club's movement.
So I'm okay with that tiny little push right there.
It's still within the margin of error.
I'm going to make sure I'm not shooting for perfection today.
Just shooting to get things back going again.
And then I'll start focusing on trying to flight the ball a little bit, and then I might do some more polishing.
I'm just trying to get these basics working.
There we go.
That was better.
You can hear the difference in the sound.
It's instead of a clank, you've got this nice little kind of compression click.
So we've got the lead arm going.
I think it's time to start adding some trail arm to the mix.
I'm not going to overly do anything with it, but let's start to introduce them.
Make sure.
Come back here, check my lines.
Okay.
And so as I start to add my trail hand, a tendency that a lot of golfers have is to start to get trail side dominant, but already from setup, But before they even take the club back, and which they'll tend to do is they'll take their setup like this and they'll start to add their trail hand.
And they'll start to get in this position where their shoulders start to get open and you start to see this left forearm, really underneath the right forearm right here.
And they start to delete their rotation because it just presets them up in a position to start overworking their arms.
So I'm going to make sure as I get set up right here, I'm going to really focus making sure I got good tilt.
I got good weight balance.
When I add my trail hand, I'm not going to add it by getting on top and negating all that good axis tilt.
I'm going to feel like it comes in a little bit more from underneath.
So my lead forearm is kind of still in the picture and not getting open like this.
And this is just going to help me as I start to kind of push my trail foot into the ground and pull my trail shoulder behind me.
It's just going to help it be a little bit more one piece, a little bit more body driven.
A little thin.
Had the line, got the line right on it, but thin.
That felt just a little jumpy in that transition.
Felt weird having both hands on the club.
Let's take some tension out.
All right, try and get that good balance.
Got our tilt, right arm in position.
We're just going to make sure on this one, really just kind of give up control on this one.
If I get a little bit of over -rotation on the face because I'm so lazy fair with it, yeah, no big worries.
I'm going to really try to let this one go a little bit.
Well, that's the flight I'm looking for.
Tiny bit thin, but I love the extension.
Hip looks good right there.
Trail foot's doing okay.
Clubs definitely release.
But I really like that lower flighted launch on it.
It sounded just a little bit on the bottom of the club.
Just a little bit.
Enough to where I can't count it even though it only missed my target about that much.
All right.
Load and rotate.
I don't really have to do anything going back.
Just a little weight and rotation.
That'll take care of everything for me.
And we're going to make sure that those legs do the work on the downswing.
There we go.
There we go.
That's what I'm looking for.
Really like the flight on that.
That was right on the money.
That was probably that exactly 50-yard carry right there.
Right on the money on that one.
But it's funny how all the lessons that I give and people that I watch and see, we all kind of struggle with the same thing.
It may be different variations of it, but we all kind of just struggle with the same thing.
Too much tension, lazy legs, overactive arms and hands.
And especially when you're coming back after a long wonder's nap.
Those arms really are like, hey, we're excited to be back out.
And I'm like, no, you don't get to work too hard today.
In fact, you just kind of take a nap and just follow along.
They thought it was their time to shine.
A little push.
Not bad though.
Not bad.
It sounded a little bit heavy, but it didn't feel heavy.
It felt like that was a little bit more of the turf after the strike.
I think the mat caught me a little bit.
Sometimes you can get a little bit of false sensation from it.
Let's get a good one in on here.
Hopefully my aim's doing well.
They've adjusted some of the mats and positionings out here since the last time I was here.
And so my lines are a little bit crossed.
And this is a tip, especially for players that struggle with alignment.
We're very aware of kind of seeing things in the periphery.
And like right now, this mat is going right on my line.
All right.
So I really like where that's going.
But this little wall right here is at an angle like this.
And so it's very easy for me to kind of get caught up when I start setting up.
I start kind of catching that in my eye.
And I'm like, okay, wait a minute.
Am I going too open or am I going down the mat right here? It's a little bit tough.
So on my end, you know, I always try to pick, especially on these smaller shots, just something intermediate right here, just to make sure it's like, okay, I'm on my mat line, but this is kind of where my initial ball flight's going.
And so you'll kind of see me when I set up right here that, you know, I kind of get a couple of wiggles in right here.
But my eyes are kind of checking my spot right here, just to make sure that I don't mess up my lines because you can start your spatial awareness can start to mess you up.
All right, let's get a good rep in here, a little takeaway, a little post and release.
There you go.
That was better.
See, just a couple of swings.
I can already feel how it just starts to get a little bit more syrupy in there.
I give up a little bit more control on the wrist, feel a little bit more rotation in the face.
And everybody gets scared of face rotation.
Not me.
I'd much rather have that club rotating the way it's designed than trying to be its boss.
Oh, that was good.
Nice drive on that.
It had that piercing, just good launch, good snap.
And that really wasn't me doing a whole bunch different other than, okay, let's just kind of shake it out.
Just kind of feel a little syrupy-ness to it.
Let the club do its job.
There's the result.
So let's do some down the lines.
We'll keep talking further.
And from there, who knows? After some trick photography later, I'd do a little bit of adjustment on the mat.
Hopefully we have this ball on the camera now.
Looks like it is on my end.
Continue on with some reps.
And just as I mentioned, you know, from the face-on version, or the down the line version, I'm going to make sure I've got my tilt.
I don't start grabbing over the top of it with my trail arm, especially with the wind today.
Because the wind is coming from behind me.
And it's very easy to get on top and then feel like you have to kind of drive it back into the wind or, you know, kind of curve it, draw it back into it.
Because right now it's pushing and it's definitely adding, I'd say, you know, a few yards of a cut to this shot.
So I'm going to make sure that my fundamentals are good.
My stance, everything's doing okay.
Got my tilt, my right arm's underneath.
My weight is balanced.
I'm going to focus on just making a good takeaway.
It doesn't have to be perfect.
Just kind of serviceable.
And then we're going to focus on really making sure that hip gets through.
Because we know that that left hip's a little bit of a issue with me.
We're going to allow for a good release.
Not bad.
A little bit of a push.
A little bit of a push.
That's okay, though.
Not too bad.
I'd like to straighten that out just a hair.
Probably got a little bit spinny on that, trying to make sure that my hip cleared and posted up enough.
Real golf, I'd be okay with that.
I hit it relatively straight, but if anything, I hit just a tiny bit of a released cut.
Just a little fall to the right.
Let's see what we can do from here.
So that one to me, I felt like I probably just got a little quick in here, delayed a little release, gave me just that little bit of cut.
That was better.
See, on that one, I felt my leg.
This was just a little snappier, so I could feel how that club was rotating and really squaring up on the way through on its own.
It's an easy way to gate 10 yards and do literally nothing different.
Breeze is picking up.
Golf gods are starting to send some warm weather our way.
I don't know if it's the golf gods or the Augusta National gods.
It's probably them.
They kind of control everything with the weather-wise around this time of season, so they're probably like, yeah, we got to get some things blooming around here.
We need some heat.
I just want that push into the ground, let that post.
Did a much better job keeping my head back, but you probably could hear that.
I was a touch heavy.
Just a touch.
A little bit of digging right there.
I know exactly who it was.
It was my trail hand.
I could feel that.
I could feel that.
Nice and light.
Nice and light.
You don't need to do anything today.
So does that bring him on over here? I'm just going to let him just lightly rest on it.
It doesn't need to be doing too much today.
What it needs to be doing is kind of staying straight going back.
I'm just going to have him nice and light.
So that pressure's in my lead.
Nothing crazy going on.
Right on the money.
Still just a touch heavy on that one.
A little quick.
It has a little rhythm to it.
A little tight.
A little tight.
And I felt my foot hanging kind of off the back of this mat right here.
So I'm going to try to scoot forward just a tiny bit more.
Hopefully that wind isn't nailing this microphone.
We're going to focus on a little weight and some rotation.
And get our weight.
Post.
Let the club release.
Let the club release.
It's free speed.
I don't need to do anything to hit this any further.
I just need to let the club release.
A little thin.
That one felt like a little bit of a bailout.
The good news is, though, these are still pretty much all on my line.
If golf is a game of misses, I'd still be okay today.
Just a little more solid, though.
To me, I felt like I bailed out just a little bit on that.
So, kind of diagnosing, not necessarily midstream, but through these.
What's my tendency today? Lead hands behaving pretty good.
I don't feel a ton of tension with that.
A couple issues that I know I'm feeling is, one, I know I'm getting a little quick, and that's me thinking about my hip.
Two, my right hand's coming just a little bit into the foray.
And that's probably just because I feel like I'm not going to get a whole bunch of power because I'm not making such a big swing.
But yet, the ones that I've hit the best are the ones that I've done the least.
And that's usually the case when it comes to golf, is that less is more.
It's a little more efficient.
There we go.
That's what I was looking for.
That's the money shot.
That's the one I was looking for.
You might be laughing at home, like I'm laughing right now.
You can go back and watch a few of my journey videos, and I'm sure I'll say this at least 20, 30 more times.
It's crazy if I go back and look at some footage and listen to what I'm saying, that when I step back and I kind of talk my way through the shot and tell myself what I need to be focusing on and concentrating on, and slow down, kind of let the swing come to me.
Almost every single shot after I do that is always exactly what I want.
Almost.
There was one that wasn't.
I remember that one.
I can even name the session.
That was good.
That's what I want.
Driving.
Jumping.
Compression.
Low effort.
All right, just take your time.
It's a little cloudy today or a little overcast.
Feels great though.
It's like 70 degrees, very low humidity, got a little breeze.
Why am I in such a rush to hit these little white demons and get my reps in? Why would I not want to just stay out here and enjoy this? Take your time.
There we go.
Good jump to that one.
It's going to be interesting to see.
You know, when I turn off this camera, obviously I'm going to look at my swing, kind of see what's going on, see if anything's changed with the couple to three months layoff.
See if anything's changed.
See, you know, what is kind of stuck in there.
But it's going to be interesting to go back and watch because this left hip, my left leg issue, I want to see if it's stayed the same, if it's gotten worse or it's gotten better.
It's had a little bit more time to heal now.
Hopefully it's gotten a little bit stronger.
But I'll go to the tape and when I turn this off, I'll film a lot more swings.
Because I need that feedback.
I need to see what's going on.
I don't want any wasted reps.
Don't have any time.
A little right hand.
Probably saw a little bit of push and a little bit of right hand.
Still on my line.
That's where it just caused it to be a little heavy.
I would think that my right hand wouldn't be coming into the foray today.
I can't see it from the camera.
But this morning, doing the dishwasher, sliced my hand up pretty darn good.
It's bleeding right now.
You'd think that it wouldn't want to do anything.
So we're going to get here, feel good load, good rotation.
We're going to shift, post.
I know the impact feel from phase one.
And let this happen.
There we go.
There we go.
Get back on there.
Let that club release.
Nothing to be in a rush about.
So with that, I'm happy to be back.
Hopefully, I can get some better camera angles and stuff going on here in the near future.
But I'm going to finish this bucket.
I'm going to kind of focus on the same things I just told you when I was doing my little rundown of what I'm kind of feeling today.
And I'm going to start to ramp up the reps.
I'm going to really get this phase two going.
I'm going to focus on next time trying to get some flighting in there.
Start trying maybe some of the bonus challenges so you can see kind of how I work on it.
Maybe split up the sessions.
Don't know.
But we're going to start doing some extra exercises in phase two, versus just these kind of warm-up phases and hitting balls.
So I can hopefully relay some more information.
James
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
Jimmy
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)
M. (Certified RST Instructor)
Craig (Certified RST Instructor)